


Reconcilliation

by queenbaskerville



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Black Widow - Freeform, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, Natasha as the Winter Soldier, Sharon as Captain America
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-10 00:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4370954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbaskerville/pseuds/queenbaskerville
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, they don't find her. She finds them.</p><p>-</p><p>Sharon in the Captain America role, Sam is exactly where he's supposed to be, Natasha in the role of the Winter Soldier but she's still Black Widow. One-shot. Would be post-catws, presuming catws happened with the previous characters in these roles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconcilliation

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for a fic-fanart swap that didn't take place but I'm still kind of proud of it so here it is. 
> 
> Notes from summary apply: Sharon in the Captain America role, Sam is exactly where he's supposed to be, Natasha in the role of the Winter Soldier but she's still Black Widow. One-shot. Would be post-catws, presuming catws happened with the previous characters in these roles.
> 
> Only warnings are typical MCU violence briefly, and there was one curse word but I think I edited it out.
> 
> Sorry about not updating anything at all. It seems like I'm in this giant slump as far as fic writing goes. I constantly start things and don't finish them.  
> That's part of the reason this is a one-shot. i could totally do a giant au fic with this but I doubt I'd ever finish it. if you want to continue this for some reason, you can. I would've had it end up with Sharon/Nat btw

Sam Wilson didn't look up when a figure slid into the seat across from him at the booth. He didn't change his eating pace at all; just kept chewing on his burger and reading his book. His eyes weren't really understanding the words anymore, though; they just scanned the page repeatedly. He didn't let himself tense, but he kept himself alert. Neither of them spoke for a few moments.

"She's not a nurse."

Sam was pretty sure he'd never heard the voice before, but that didn't matter. He knew who it belonged to. He looked up from his book and stared into the green irises of Natasha Romanov, the Red Room's Black Widow, previously a ghost story.

She didn't look so good. Her thick red hair hung past her shoulders in a tangled mess, and there were large bags under her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping. Hadn't been eating, either, most likely. Her lips were cracked and the skin that held her together was too pale, but her eyes were bright and fervent, the only sign of life in her emotionless mask of a face.

"And you're not a weapon," Sam replied, and then took a sip of his drink.

"Yes, I am," she said, but she didn't sound like she fully believed it.

"You're a human being. A  _person_." Sam insisted. He kept his voice even and calm.

Natasha changed subjects abruptly. "You haven't called her."

"Called who?" he asked, even though he knew.

"Not-nurse."

Sam smiled gently. "Her name is Sharon."

Natasha turned her head to stare out the widow at the pedestrians crossing the street. Or maybe at something else, Sam wasn't sure. "She's nice. I remember." She turned back to look at Sam. "You still haven't called her."

He raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me to call her?"

She didn't answer the question. "You haven't texted her, either. If you were smart you would have texted her under the table to let her know that I'm here and you're in danger."

"I don't think I'm in danger," Sam said around a mouthful of french fries.

"Why?"

"I trust you."

" _Why?_ " Natasha demanded again, this time sounding surprised and incredulous.

"If you were gonna kill me you wouldn't have needed to talk to me this long. I've read your file. If you wanted to hurt me I'd already be as dead as a doornail." Sam dabbed at his face with a paper napkin, balled it up, and put it to the side. "And Sharon trusts you."

Natasha looked away again. "She shouldn't."

"Why not?" 

"You know why." She looked back, gazing unblinkingly long enough to make Sam uncomfortable. He tried not to let it show.

"I think you should give yourself a chance," he said gently. "Sharon wants to give you one, and so do I."

"She doesn't like the 'Star Spangled Gal' song. Change her ringtone, she doesn't know how." Natasha blurted, and then she rose gracefully. "Don't let her stay up past one. She wakes up at five thirty so she can stretch before jogging with you at six. It's not healthy."

"You could tell her that yourself, you know," Sam managed to say as she left the booth and headed for the door, deciding that since he'd already suspected that she was watching them he didn't need to point out that she'd just given it away. Natasha made no acknowledgment that she'd heard him.

Sam didn't tell Sharon that he'd talked to Natasha. No sense in it. Sharon would be crushed by Natasha leaving without talking to her. 

He did nab her phone one day and change the ringtone to a Marvin Gaye's "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," which earned him a raised eyebrow, and he started complaining loudly about the hotel bedroom lights being on after ten and how it was screwing up his sleep schedule, which made her turn them out at 9:59 every night and they'd both lay in their own beds for a while. Sam wasn't sure if she slept at all, but at least she was relaxing. 

He didn't see Natasha again until a large group of Hydra fanatics ambushed him and Sharon in their hotel room a few weeks later while they were asleep. Sharon woke first. Her super-hearing detected an abnormal number of footsteps at one time and she sprang to her feet, reaching instinctively for a shield that was at the bottom of the Potomac. The Hydra agent at the foot of her bed aimed his gun at her face and grinned, and then he pulled the trigger.

Except he didn't, because a bullet shattered the window and then his skull, entering through his temple. He dropped like a stone.

Sam was awake by then and had pulled his gun out of his night stand drawer, and he shot the agent who was meant for him as Sharon launched herself at the third agent. She tackled him down and elbowed him in the face, crushing his nose. The fourth and final agent pointed her gun at the floor where Sharon was destroying her would-be attacker, but two shots to the chest took her out. She collapsed on top of Sharon and the other agent, making the agent cry out and Sharon grunt.

"Thanks," Sharon muttered dryly as she jumped up, knocking the dead agent off her.

"That wasn't me," said Sam, and after a second of slow realization Sharon bolted, running out the bedroom door and down the hotel stairs, heading outside. Sam followed.

Across the street, a figure in a hoodie with a duffel bag slung over their shoulder strode out of a two story building. Sharon ran for them, jumping over the hood of a car and blazing by another honking one, her whole self focused on getting to that person. Sam, who didn't have the luxury of a super-serum coursing through his veins, skidded to a stop and waited for a lull in traffic before crossing.

By the time he caught up, Sharon was standing silently next to the hooded figure under a street light. The yellow glow illuminated Sharon's face, her expression a mix of devastation and hope; pained and pleading, soft and sad. The person beside her was no longer in shadow. The bags under Natasha's eyes were bigger and her cheeks were hollow.

"Hey, Nat," Sharon murmured, her lips twitching up slightly, trying to be light.

"I thought it was Natasha," Natasha said, and Sharon's smile faltered.

"What?"

"My name," she tried to clarify. 

The smile was back, but it was even smaller. Sam hadn't thought that was possible. "Nat is like a nickname, like Tasha. I won't use it if you don't like it."

"No, it's .... nice." Natasha tilted her head and gazed at Sharon. "You're nice."

Sharon's eyes were slowly filling with tears. "I try."

Sam observed quietly as Natasha struggled to come up with something to say.

"I'm not staying," was what she ended up with.

"Why not?" asked Sharon, and Sam had to give her points for how gentle she was with it, even though her heart was breaking.

"I have to go get your shield out of the water. It's lost because of me, and you could've died tonight because you didn't have it." She frowned.

"But I didn't die. You were there. You shot those men from the other building. It's okay, you can let the wreckage-clearing workers find it. You can stay here. Or go, we won't make you stay," Sharon added hastily. "But you don't have to go get the shield."

"But it's my fault," Natasha protested, and Sharon couldn't hold her tears back anymore.

"No," she insisted, her tone the heaviest it'd been the whole night. "It wasn't your fault. It was Hydra's, and the Red Room's, okay? They were the ones behind all this, not you."

Natasha ignored her, instead asking bewilderedly, "Why are you crying?"

That just made Sharon cry harder. Sam wished he had tissues.

"Can I give you a hug?" Sharon asked with a small voice, sounding like she needed it. 

Natasha flinched, tensing immediately, eyes narrow and wary. "No."

Sharon's own eyes widened with shock and sorrow and regret, believing she'd scared Natasha away, that she'd leave and they'd never be able to find her.

Natasha noticed her reaction and let her guard down a little. The hard line of her mouth softened, though she still seemed cautious. "But you can hold my hand, if you want."

Sharon's tear stained face managed another smile. "Okay. I'd like that," she murmured, nodding once, and she slowly reached out and clasped Natasha's small, calloused hand.

The three of them, the Falcon, the Captain, and the Widow, stood silently under the street light, listening to the cars speed by. The clouds hung low over their heads and Sharon wept quietly, allowing herself a moment to grieve over what had been done to her friend. Natasha never took her eyes off of Sharon, and her grip on Sharon's hand was tight, the only expression of yearning for Sharon's presence that she allowed herself. Sam put his hands in his jacket pockets and stared at the sky, thanking whatever gods were out there that they had this one moment of peace. 


End file.
